


sweeter than honey (redux)

by lovelyirony



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Pepper Potts, F/M, and for being a menace to society, and gets punished for it! smh, bruce is just there to cause chaos and also be found out, except we can because i made this!, he's a dork like that, pepper is also a gigantic dork, pepper just decides to be a bad bitch, rhodey has opinions on chairs and is also badass, tony helps and falls in love along the way, tony stark is a gigantic dork, we can't have anything, yeah they're. disasters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:55:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27113620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyirony/pseuds/lovelyirony
Summary: Pepper has broken laws.This may have been bad.(Not really.)
Relationships: Happy Hogan & Pepper Potts, Pepper Potts & James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 43
Collections: Marvel





	sweeter than honey (redux)

**Author's Note:**

> title came from a prompt from illusionarypandi on tumblr!

Pepper Potts did not exactly mean to become a criminal. Really, she still doesn’t think she is. 

But here are the facts: 

1.) She has broken several laws in pursuit of funds that do not belong to her. 

2.) The FBI would like to talk to her about several things and potentially put her under arrest. 

3.) She can no longer go to her regular coffee shop because the barista snitched and told them her name, as well as her occupation. 

Pepper broke several laws because the company she was working for (Stane International) was technically breaking laws, but laws that do not apply to corporations because corporations do this thing called “funding campaigns” and also sometimes “doing favors.” 

She decided to do the same and suddenly she is a criminal. Not her fault she redistributed money back into the community, and now they can’t get any of it back. 

It’s just how that worked out. 

She’s been staying at a hotel that serves many questionable individuals each month, and it has an indoor pool and a three-star rating on the latest travel website. 

It’s nondescript, not her style, and she’s currently in the bathroom having a crisis because she most likely needs to dye her hair. 

She’s vain. Pepper knows she is, has known it since high school when she trimmed her hair and cried. Her hair, by all accounts, is gorgeous. It’s a shiny strawberry-blonde that makes her look like an ice queen in winter and a mysterious fairy queen in summer. 

She does not want to dye it. But here she is with an eight dollar box of dye and thoughts in her head. 

And then her hotel door opens. 

Not supposed to do that, but that’s what happens when you’re in a three-star hotel. 

She is also in old athletic shorts that have most definitely seen better days and a tank top that was a last-minute buy from the nearest store, and it does not suit her at all. 

Facing her is a man with an odd beard, tinted sunglasses, and a graphic t-shirt over a blazer. 

“So. You pissed off Stane Industries,” he drawls. “I’m impressed. Usually they just sweep their little problems under the rug.” 

“I’ll sweep you under one if you’d like,” Pepper offers, wondering how quickly a blowdryer can knock someone out. She’s not sure how well-made the hotel one is. Probably not very. 

“I’m not here to kill you,” the man says. He takes off his sunglasses. His eyes are a nice shade of brown, not that you’re supposed to notice that about a potential enemy. Pepper is just that skilled. 

“Then what are you here to do? Make me move to Florida?” 

“No, the opposite. We’re staying here. I’m offering you a job position of helping me take down Obadiah Stane and the company itself.” 

“Who would I be working with?” 

“Anthony Stark.” 

Pepper stills. 

She read the news when she was in college, same time as Tony Stark. Went missing in the car crash, no one found his body. Temperatures were freezing, he was wearing a tuxedo. The chances were that he froze to death somewhere that they didn’t find yet. 

Chances were. What an odd little phrase. 

“So, you made it out.” 

“Not as hard as people say it seems to be, Virginia.” 

“Call me Pepper, my first name disgusts me.” 

“Gotcha, Pepper. Call me Tony. You in?” 

“Obviously. What do I need to do?” 

“Meet the team.” 

-

There is Rhodey, who was Tony’s best friend and sobbed on national television for two weeks until they forgot all about him. 

“He’ll cry at anything,” Tony says with a laugh as Rhodey sends him a dirty look. “Just made him think about neon shoes and he bawled like a baby.”

“I did _not_ ,” Rhodey hisses. “I was a good crier.” 

“You looked like a seal,” Pepper intervenes. “But you played the part quite well. Nice to meet you.” 

“Right back at you, Pepper.” 

She meets Happy, a man who is all serious and grumpy and “did not want to break the law before forty” but he also gets to watch _Downton Abbey_ whenever he wants, so he’s not doing too bad. 

He runs security and also tells Rhodey and Tony when they’re banned from ordering pizza all the time, and Pepper is inducted into the Healthy Eating Committee. 

There’s Bruce Banner, who enjoys taking over corporations for fun, and this is his second one. His first was some sort of health insurance scam, and apparently that was just to finish up his thesis for his third doctorate. 

“He has seven degrees, he’s weird,” Tony says. 

“Oh like you’re any better,” Bruce says with a snort. “You learned twelve languages for fun. Including French, which is useless.” 

“French is not useless,” Tony says. “It got us free food in Canada.” 

“We would’ve gotten it anyway if we’d done it my way.” 

“Stealing?” Rhodey asks. 

“Yes!” 

Pepper laughs. 

\- 

Their job is a bit easier than anticipated. They found out from Pepper that getting into the building is stupid easy because no one likes their job and will do anything when bribed. 

Tony struts in with a badly-made-employee-ID and talks about a copying machine and coffee and seeing someone next month for dinner. Pepper just keeps her head down and pretends like she’s meeting someone for something. Like usual. 

Obadiah Stane is out of the country on a meeting, and his secretary is scared to death of him, so they’re allowed to poke around the office and find some interesting information. 

The problem comes when someone recognizes Bruce outside (government watchlists: the most pesky things on earth) and suddenly there’s this huge fuss. 

Tony pushes Pepper into an office closet and then promptly asks her if anyone opens the door, if she’s alright with him kissing her. 

“Why would you do that?” 

“People don’t like watching kissing, too intimate. Also, you have a lovely face and you’re quite funny, and I think it’d be fun and delightful to kiss you.” 

“How long have you thought about that?” 

“Not going to talk about that, just want an answer. If you say no--and feel free to, there’s no obligation in physical contact right now--it does complicate plans A to D. I suppose we could play the divorced couple route, but I’m not a gigantic fan about that.” 

“I mean, I guess? It wouldn’t be bad, and I’m not exactly opposed to it, Would it mean anything later?” 

“Do you want it to?” 

“Let’s figure that out after we do it.” 

“If we need to do it.” 

Door swings open. 

Oh, there’s a need. 

Tony is a particularly nice kisser, Pepper thinks. The thought runs through her head that she’s only kissed two people before Tony, and one was in high school so that doesn’t count, but the other was a secretary at an old company she used to work for.

But Tony is nice. Soft and warm and he grabs her waist and _that’s_ nice. 

“Oh my god, sorry,” the employee mutters. “I just, I thought-” 

“Occupied!” Tony says, not even stopping as he kicks out his leg and practically stomps the poor other guy in the stomach. 

They get out, run, and Pepper laughs as she sees a bit of pink lipstick on the side of Tony’s mouth. 

“So, how’d I do?” 

“Send me a survey,” Pepper remarks. “Or a ranking.” 

“On a scale of one to ten?” 

“Seven.” 

“I was _that_ bad?” 

“How do you rank things? Do you put one as the best?” 

“Obviously.” 

“No, you’re an idiot. One is always the worst. You’re a nine. It would’ve been higher but we were in a corporate office and in a supply closet.” 

“So what you’re saying is, I’ll have to try again?” Tony asks, a hopeful look in his eye. 

“Preferably over a couple glasses of wine and pizza. The good kind, though. Not the garbage Rhodey orders.” 

They approach the car that Happy has, with Rhodey and Bruce already leading others on a goose chase. 

“You two have too much fun,” Happy mutters. “Boss, you got lipstick on your side. Did you get the drives?” 

“Transferred and set to release to every major news outlet tomorrow morning at six a.m.,” Tony says. “Interns are going to curse my name as they’re forced to rewrite articles.” 

Pepper smiles. 

That night, they have a couple of glasses of wine and Tony orders the good pizza, the kind that costs a little bit too much for what it is, but it’s all worth it in the end. 

\- 

When Tony takes over the company after about six months of legal battles that would probably have drawn on for well over a decade if not for the fact that Tony is one of the most in-your-face-let’s-talk men she’s ever met, Pepper was kind of expecting things to slow down. 

Of course not. That’s not her style nor is it Tony’s, although arguably a vacation or a nice spa day would have been nice beforehand. 

“We have shit to do,” Tony says. “Rhodey, you need to help me revamp R&D. Pepper, I need to talk to you in the office.” 

They’ve already hired a company to completely redesign the entire building and refocus the company’s outlook, starting with getting rid of the disgusting 1970s carpet and chairs. God, it’s ugly. Pepper cried when she saw the office chairs. 

But she’s in Tony’s office, and she’s wondering if this is going to be directly related to workplace relationships or not. She’s already prepared an argument as to why she still wants a relationship and just how much professionalism she can exhibit in the face of hardship. 

(That hardship being the fact that Tony looks quite good in suits but also has arms that are _made_ for tank tops.) 

“I have a problem with you,” Tony says. “And it’s that I want to make you CEO, but I don’t want people to think that you got it just because we’re dating. So we have an issue to cross.” 

Pepper was not expecting this. She was expecting maybe head accountant, or head of the PR team. But CEO? That was something that was... _wow_. Pepper had had a fifteen year plan for working up from wherever it was that she would be at. 

She also didn’t know they were dating. 

“We’re dating?” 

“Did I read the kiss wrong? Oh shit, was the seven secretly the bad seven?” 

“No!” Pepper says. “You just never told me that we were dating, we didn’t have a communicative conversation about it.” 

“Oh. Well, would you like to go on dates and things?” 

“What’s ‘and things’?” 

“You know. Sexy times. But I wanted to be a professional about it. But I am not that professional.” 

“No, no you’re not. Which is why you offered me the CEO position and why I am accepting it. But I will also date you...and things.” 

“Excellent. Have a dinner tonight while we discuss how to do Microsoft Excel?” 

“I already know how to use it.” 

“Pepper, you are the only woman for me in this lifetime and the next.” 

“And the one after that?” 

“I’m assuming you’ll get bored of me and marry someone who’s seven feet tall.” 

“Seven feet tall? What, am I going to attend every NBA game for the next husband?” 

“Maybe, I don’t know what you’ll do. I’ll probably be halfway into a grave over despair.” 

Pepper chuckles, dropping a short kiss onto his temple. 

“Well, I hope I don’t have to witness that. You want me to make some salad for tonight then?” 

“Yes please! We also need to review the decor and see what chairs to order.” 

Pepper nods. 

“We need to ask Rhodey, he has opinions about design of those.” 

“Of course he does, he hates standing too long. We’ll send him some of our options.” 

She waves as she leaves the office. 

What Tony misses: 

Pepper pumps her fist as she leaves the office, nearly stumbles, and is quite glad that no security cameras were installed that day. 

What Pepper misses: 

Tony spins so hard in his office chair as a celebration that it topples over. 

Yeah, they’re made for each other.


End file.
